Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeIran News NowIran Opposition & ResistanceStevenson: Washington will be my next port of call

Stevenson: Washington will be my next port of call

Struan StevensonText of Speech by Mr. Struan Stevenson, MEP and Vice President EPP-ED Group at Résidence Palace in Brussels on January 27
 

NCRI – Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. First of all a huge congratulation to Mrs Rajavi and the NCRI now that we have the PMOI off the list.

It has been seven long years. It was back in 2001 that the EU decided after 9/11 that they create the EU terrorist list. In 2002, in an act of craven appeasement, the UK government, with Jack straw as the Foreign Minister, agreed to a request by the mullahs to place the PMOI on the UK terror list. The UK government then asked the Council of Ministers to follow their lead.

We have had repeated court cases, with a team of wonderful advocates and lawyers representing the NCRI and the PMOI. In the UK, the judges described the original decision to list the PMOI as “perverse”, which was strong language for judges. We then saw the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg following the UK example, declaring there are no grounds whatsoever to maintain the PMOI on the list, and demanding that they be delisted. But then we had the acute defiance of the law by the Council. France decided that they would step into the breach caused when the UK courts ordered the PMOI to be removed from the UK terror list.

In another craven act of appeasement vis-à-vis the mullahs’ fascist regime and in reaction to the mullahs’ threats regarding severing of trade contracts, the French took Britain’s place and insisted that the Council must maintain the PMOI on the EU terror list.

Once again, this forced us to go to the courts. 2000 members of parliament from parliaments across the EU, including of course the European Parliament, joined forces to demand that the rule of law be respected. After seven long years we have finally seen victory.

Those seven years represented a dark period for the European Union. The rule of law is what we founded our European institutions on. When we are confronted with member states openly defying the rule of law, using it simply for political expediency to suit the demands of the moment and the commercial pressures being placed upon them by the mullahs, it is indeed shameful, disgraceful, and an embarrassment. I condemn France for the role they have played in this regard. They should be ashamed of themselves.

But during those black years, we found our true friends. There are also member states who understand the importance of upholding the rule of law and upholding the judgement of the Court of First Instance. After seven consecutive court cases in the UK and Luxembourg, we have seen victory with the Council of Ministers yesterday agreeing that the new terror list should not include the PMOI.

I can tell you that my frustration during those seven years became so much that I recently declared to the world in general that if the PMOI is terrorist, then I too am a “terrorist” because I support them. I am glad to say that now I am a full member because I am wearing their tie today.

We cannot rest easy until we have followed this example in the United States, too. The Clinton administration put the PMOI on the US terror list also at the direct request of Tehran. The mullahs’ hysteric reaction in the last couple of weeks as they understood that there was a move on foot to remove the PMOI from the list, shows how much they fear the return of freedom, democracy and Mrs Rajavi. Her manifesto will restore a secular democracy, human rights and women’s rights, and it will do away with nuclear enrichment  and the death penalty in Iran. That is what the mullahs most fear, as indicated by their mounting hysteria

Appeasement will always fail in the end. We have seen its abject failure this week. It is incredible that the PMOI, at risk to their lives in Iran, were the ones who revealed to the West information showing that the Iranian regime had a clandestine nuclear program. Western intelligence agencies, for all their wealth and riches, had completely failed to see that this was happening.How did the West reward the PMOI for risking their lives to reveal such information? We placed them on the terror list.

The fascist mullahs ruling Iran hang pregnant women and children, perform torture, have executed one hundred and twenty thousand supporters of the PMOI simply because of their political beliefs, gouge out eyes, stone men and women to death, and amputate limbs. They are the real terrorists, but we regard them in the West as our friends and our allies! It is an incredible paradox. And I hope the decision of the Council yesterday will reverse this process so that we now clearly understand who our real friends are and provide to the people of Ashraf City the protection that they require. When we regarded them as terrorist in the West, it made it easy for the mullahs, using their acolytes and the Iraqi government, to try to introduce new laws that would close Ashraf City and deport all the 3500 brave and courageous people there to Tehran where they would face certain torture and death.

Well they are no longer on the terror list and this excuse by some members of the Iraqi government and by the mullahs no longer holds water. They must now be regarded as people bona fide protected by the Geneva Conventions as has been the case all along.

So, it has been a great victory but we have a much longer journey ahead of us, and a lot more work to do. Washington will be my next port of call. I hope to have meetings in Congress, in the Senate and perhaps in the Pentagon too to try to change the opinion over there. If the Obama administration and the State Department ask me ‘can we trust the PMOI,’ I want to be able to say, using Barack Obama’s own words, “yes, we can”. Thank you very much indeed.